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The Quiet Zone wins
The decision turned out to be easier than expected. With hardly any accidents on record for the crossings between L Street and the Sumner/Miller intersection, the council decided to take the bare minimum approach and preserve the quiet zone. The decision means the city doesn't have to reallocate millions of dollars of resources away from projects like the Sports Village. And it means residents and businesspeople along the zone don't have to fear a return of the horns. Councilwoman Sue Benham said the train horns impact the entire community, from among the most powerful — the judges in the courthouse — to the least powerful — the residents of the homeless shelters. But the approach has a nickname — "risk assessment." That translates to rolling the dice. There's a solid record of safety, but if something goes wrong, victims and their lawyers will not hesitate to display all the safety improvements the city could have installed, and is choosing not to. The list of improvements the state PUC wanted was extensive. A gate across each sidewalk at each crossing. New circuitry for each bells-and-lights system. Nobody at the city said it aloud, but I will: the marginal safety improvement of each of those improvements would be, well, marginal. The city would be spending money to make crossings safer, when it's not clear from the statistics they really can be made safer. But again, it's a risk the council is taking. 3 comments from 3 users
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posted by
sagefever
on Jun 12, 2008 at 08:40 AM
With this decision I have the home I bought in 1979 back again.Quiet,the occasional train whistle,the background sound of 58 and 99 like the ocean(okay I got one good imagination!) and the sounds of the school yard a few blocks from me.....Thank you City Council. Folks big train goes fast,will crush you~ do not think your faster.
posted by
becuzz
on Jun 12, 2008 at 08:54 AM
Me too Sagefever! We moved to the neighborhood in 1996 and it sure has been nice not waking up in the middle of the night to the "dueling train horns" for the last few months. It's good to know that they won't be coming back. Thank you City Council for making a very "sound", reasonable decision! posted by
Jburger
on Jun 12, 2008 at 10:20 AM
Just an anecdote here, Last week I was coming out of a Board of Supervisors meeting at the County Administrative Building at N and Truxtun. I'd parked on the far side of the railroad tracks and, when I headed to my car, I noticed the crossing guard arms at the railroad tracks on N Street were down — but no train was blocking the tracks. There was a train stopped on one track, with its nose just touching the intersection. Grumbling, I walked over to the pedestrian overpass behind Rabobank Arena, slogged up the stairs. As I was walking across the overpass, I noticed about five or six people walk around the crossing arms and saunter across the open tracks in front of the train. I grumbled some more and kept trudging. Then the train started to move. It backed up a ways and the arms came up — just as I got down from the overpass. Grumble. But it made me think a couple things: 1) people are very sure of their own intelligence and will ignore safety warnings. 2) Railroad folks can be a bit thoughtless about the impact their trains have on the public. At least the train guy noticed the problem and was nice enough to move. James Burger
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